News
A special session on PERS begins Sept. 30 and, as WW has reported, Gov. John Kitzhaber is pretty likely to try and get a deal on the Columbia River Crossing in as well.Now activists from political action committee Bike Walk Vote are organizing a phone tree to try and stop it.As first pointed out by BikePortland, the political group has launched "Operation CRC: Commotion & Ruckus Campaign." They're ...
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Murmurs
The Northwest Grocery Association is pushing hard to privatize liquor sales in Oregon and is seeking political support with the promise of steering $10 million in tax revenues directly to law-enforcem
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As Gov. John Kitzhaber prepares to call a special session this month, with PERS and the Columbia River Crossing potentially on the docket, another billboard has gone up protesting the CRC.The billboard, located on I-205 near Gladstone and pictured above, reads:"Dear Politicians, No CRC-Light Rail. Build Better Roads. Sincerely, The Voters."The billboard is the work of the Oregon Transformation ...
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Eleven environmental groups sent a letter to Gov. John Kitzhaber today, pleading with the governor to abandon his plans for an Oregon-only Columbia River Crossing project.The groups, including 1000 Friends of Oregon and the Coalition for a Livable Future, say the "scaled-down" $2.75 billion project—backed only by Oregon coffers—"remains bad public policy for Oregon and the Portland-Vancouver region." ...
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Should the Columbia River Crossing go forward, Oregon taxpayers will pay three manufacturers $86.4 million to compensate for the bridge being built too low.The cost—related to three major mitigation deals struck with manufacturers along the Washington side of the the Columbia River—was released this afternoon as part of a records request by WW and other media.The CRC, now downsized to an Oregon-only ...
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Here's another sign backers of the Columbia River Crossing are serious about reviving this once-dead idea: The Vancouver City Council is taking up the charge of paying for light rail.The council is set to hold a workshop on Sept. 9 to discuss ways to cover the $2.5 million a year light rail operations and maintenance costs as planned, even though Clark County voters rejected a sales tax to cover the ...
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Oregon State Treasurer Ted Wheeler is calling into question the ambitious September-or-bust timeline given by backers trying to sustain the ailing Columbia River Crossing.In a terse letter (PDF) sent today to Gov. John Kitzhaber's top adviser on the project, Patricia McCaig, Wheeler says CRC staff are "going to have to make a great leap forward in a short period of time to provide legally adequate ...
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The Columbia River Crossing Coalition, a bistate group of businesses and citizens who support the CRC, sent a letter to Oregon and Washington's governors today, asking for a revived $2.75 billion project.The letter, released late this afternoon, comes on the heels of CRC officials confirming yesterday they are looking for new ways to revive the $3.5 billion megaproject, even though Govs. John Kitzhaber ...
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We hate to say we told you so, but... the Columbia River Crossing is a zombridge, officials confirmed to the Portland and Vancouver daily newspapers.Patricia McCaig, head of intergovernmental relations and government affairs for the project, told The Oregonian yesterday that planners are scrambling to come up with a design by Sept. 30 that would use funding from Oregon and not from Washington state. Last ...
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When the Columbia River Crossing was unceremoniously dumped from Oregon and Washington's transportation project rolls in early July, the erstwhile "long term comprehensive solution" for Interstate 5 quickly changed its splash page to this (screen grab from July 8):But as WW reported, there's effort underway to try and revive the project in some form, as evidenced by the CRC's continued progress in ...
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